Roadster Vs. the S.F chapter of the PCA

SLOroadster · Post by **SLOroadster** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 9:03 pm

So in a quest to find more seat time, I have gotten myself into a PCA autoX at Alameda NAS. My friend who runs a pretty quick 914 blew up his engine 2 weeks ago at Laguna Seca. I stopped by his place to see the damage and found him madly trying to get another car put together (a 914 thats got more than one issue with it) so he could run this weekend. I half jokingly said, "well if you want to try and get the roadster in, I'd love to come run with you." He thought about it for a moment and it was a go.

My track record against Porsches is pretty good, at my last event (a week ago) only one beat me. It was a 914-6 with a big engine and tires wide enough to sleep on. He got me by just under 2 seconds. I did however manage to blow the doors off 2 944 turbos, another 914, and a Gemballa tuned 996. (I beat him by about 5 seconds. Apparently having the $ for one doesn't mean you know how to drive it.)

The course is on one of the runways, and it looks really long. I'm looking forward to using 3rd gear for a change as I've never really had the chance to. The other thing I have going for me is that I'm about a foot narrower than all the other Porsches.

The best thing is that I get to trailer the car down, with both sets of tires. If it rains, I have the street tires, if its dry I have the r-compounds. Because I'm not in contention for a season championship here there is no pressure and lots of seat and tuning time. I'm hoping to gain ideas for car setup that I can carry over to the NORCAL UFO series that I am currently sitting 3rd in with 7 events to go. (I finished 3rd last weekend. It kinda made up for the last place I had in the Alfa back in Feb in the rain, and the 5th place I had back in Jan, also in the rain.)

This should be fun.

Will

Post by **dbrick** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 10:49 pm

Sounds cool, so now you have a Trailer Queen!!

SLOroadster · Post by **SLOroadster** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 12:06 am

Here is what the course will look like more or less. 2000 feet each direction.

This could be horribly embarrassing to Porsche owners that I beat. One somewhat ratty looking Datsun picking on Uber-sportscars.

http://www.914club.com/bbs2/index.php?a ... &id=123769

I don't know why this picture won't post.

Will

RC240z · Post by **RC240z** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 10:47 am

Lots of Cones and not a lot of visual clues...tricky....

Go kick some POC butt! Oh! and say hi to the Mythbusters if you see them....I understand they like to hang out at NAS Alameda and blow things up!

Ron

SLOroadster · Post by **SLOroadster** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 9:06 pm

It was a good day to race a roadster today. We got down to the course with plenty of time to unload and get everything setup. We both were in the same run group. After hearing the first couple of times (the first 25 drivers DNF'ed their first run due to some confusement on a few poorly marked corners.) we figured a 1.15 was about the fastest we could run. At the end of our first session I had a 1.17, and my friend had a 1.16. We were just trading seats so the car was fully loaded. After playing with tire pressure (25 in the front and 26 rear works really well for V710s) we thought we had things dialed in for the afternoon runs. I did my course worker duty and came back to the car to check a couple of things out. What I found gave me flash backs to my return trip from Shasta in 2003. My alternator decided it didn't like its lower mounting bolt and broke the end off just inside the front plate. Well the end of the bolt went forward into the fan bounced around making a serious mess of the fan and exited someplace, along with a large part of a fan blade. I thought I was done for the day. I pulled things apart to take a better look and discovered that if I moved some spacers around and used some red loctite on what remained of the threads It wouldn't go any place, and had enough tension to not throw the belt. Off to grid I went. I could smell coolant but couldn't find where it was coming from. I thought I had holed the radiator with the bolt failure (it wouldn't have surprised me in the least.) So I gridded up and prepared for the afternoon runs with the plan to check both the alternator and the radiator surge tank after every run. Went for it. I thought I got off course and more or less stopped, (for a while) and then took off again with a heck with it I've blown this run so who cares attitude. Either the course workers didn't catch it, or I wasn't off course so I got a time. 1.16xx. That translates to a fast time without a big stop in the middle. So I passed the car off to my friend. We checked everything and everything was good to go so off he went. He came in with a 1.15xx. My turn. I went off and nailed it. Carried the car through a 180 degree long sweeping turnaround right on the edge of a drift, came out the other side and grabbed 3rd. SHot down a short straight into a perfect heel toe downshift to 2nd. Nailed the throttle. Blasted through a short tight slalom and into the finish. I ran a 1.112. Yeah thats what I'm talking about. TTOD that was posted for the morning was a 1.10x. I beat my friend who ran a 1.12X. Last run I got sloppy and killed some cones, and it was pretty bad, but still a 1.14X. My friend came back with a 1.10x so he just edged me out. The TTOD fell to about 63 seconds in the afternoon, but that was a full on purpose built race car. I think it was a gutted 914, no windshield, and a 3.8 L engine with HUGE Goodyear slicks. There were a few other non street legal cars that were faster than us, but not many. GT3s were running 1.15Xs, 996 turbos about the same.

I don't have official results, but when they come out I will post. The smallest, oldest car with the correct motor with the cheapest sticker price (new) made a lot of Porsche owners respect the loud primer pained car that didn't belong.

Will

Post by **Kman** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 9:21 pm

Hell yeah! That sounded like fun! Congrats.

SLOroadster · Post by **SLOroadster** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 10:22 pm

Thanks Kman. My friend was complaining he was just beat on the way home. He said the car was boat loads of fun to drive, but it just works you over. He was complaining that he was sore. My comment was "its just another day at the office." Give me another 12 runs.

Will

Nissanman · Post by **Nissanman** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 12:24 am

Well done!!
Sounds like you both enjoyed yourselves and booted some a$$ as well.

SLOroadster · Post by **SLOroadster** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:29 pm

Here are a couple of pictures of the course.

It was a sea of cones. I still don't have any results yet.

Will

Dan Atsma · Post by **Dan Atsma** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 7:48 pm

Great job!
The snow is almost gone by us, hopefully we will be able to get the cars out soon and start pounding cones into the pavement

SLOroadster · Post by **SLOroadster** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 8:53 pm

Dan Atsma wrote:Great job!
The snow is almost gone by us, hopefully we will be able to get the cars out soon and start pounding cones into the pavement

Dan,
The idea is not to hit the cones.

I think I can count all the cones I've hit this year on one hand. Thats 4 races so far, 2 in the rain. I think I'm up to 4 or 5 (and the were killed in grand fashion.) I'm trying to keep the years total under 10.

If you go for some real race tires, a set of 195/55/14 Kumho V710s at 25 in the front and 26 in the rear are a deadly combination. Not really that fast in the rain, but loads of fun.
Thanks for the support,

Will

SLOroadster · Post by **SLOroadster** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 9:18 pm

Some pictures.

TTOD car.

V8 powered, but it broke in grand fashion.

Purpose built Boxter.

Another 914 with a big engine.

Will

Dan Atsma · Post by **Dan Atsma** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 10:01 pm

My thoughts on cones: Get a good clean run then push it to the limit, you don't know the limit till you pass it

We are just about done changing out the rear gear to a 4:10, hopefully get a little more 2nd gear torq

SLOroadster · Post by **SLOroadster** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:28 am

Dan Atsma wrote:My thoughts on cones: Get a good clean run then push it to the limit, you don't know the limit till you pass it
We are just about done changing out the rear gear to a 4:10, hopefully get a little more 2nd gear torq

You know, I've been considering going the other direction to a 3.9 LSD. I keep getting hung out on straights and slaloms that force me to lift or shift. I literally need 1.5 seconds more of 2nd.

As for killing cones, wide late apexes will help keep your momentum up. I've been trying to do everything I can to keep momentum up. This includes throwing some straight line speed away to get the car settled before the corner and rolling into the throttle as the corner progresses. Keeping the car flowing seems to be the key to the courses I've see here on the west coast. Tires play a huge part in this. When I was running the Falkens, I tried this, but the tires broke free too soon, so I was scrubbing all my speed at corner entrance, and trying to catch the back end through the corner resulting in a drift, and or a spin out. The V710s gave me the grip I needed and yesterday got me the tire pressure to run. I was playing with pressures all 3 previous times I have had the chance to run the tires.

Will

SLOroadster · Post by **SLOroadster** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 8:23 am

A couple more pictures.

After unloading the car in the morning. It was unhappy to be left out side over night.

My friend is a tile setter (the guy driving in the first picture.) He was doing a little advertising. You gotta love magnetic numbers. I guess it could be looked at as a business expense (the gas down and back).

Will